Malcolm, being so necessary and close a personal attendant on the earl, always came and went about his master without any body’s noticing him; but now Helen fancied he was making signals to her or to some one.  Lord Cairnforth detected them.

“Is any thing wrong, Malcolm?  Speak out; don’t hide things from me.  I am not a child now.”

There was just the slightest touch of sharpness in the gentle voice, and Malcolm did speak out.

“I wadna be troubling ye, my lord, but it’s just an auld man, Dougal Mc Dougal, frae the head o’ Loch Mhor—­a puir doited body, wha says he maun hae a bit word wi’ your lordship.  But I tellt him ye coulna be fashed wi’ the like o’ him.”

“That was not civil or right, Malcolm—­an old man, too.  Where is he?”

“Just by the door—­eh—­and he’s coming ben—­the ill-mannered loon!” cried Malcolm, angrily, as he interrupted the intruder—­a tall, gaunt figure wrapped in a shepherd’s plaid, with the bonnet set upon the grizzled head in that sturdy independence—­nay, more than independence—­rudeness, rough and thorny as his own thistle, which is the characteristic of the Scotch peasant externally, till you get below the surface to the warm, kindly heart.

“I’m no ill-mannered, and I’ll just gang through the hale house till I find my lord,” said the old man, shaking off Malcolm with a strength that his seventy odd years seemed scarcely to have diminished.  “I’m wushing ane harm to ony o’ ye, but I maun get speech o’ my lord.  He’s no bairn; he’ll be ane-and-twenty the thirtieth o’ June:  I mind the day weel, for the wife was brought to bed o’ her last wean the same day as the countess, and our Dougal’s a braw callant the noo, ye ken.  Gin the earl has ony wits ava, whilk folk thocht was aye doubtful’, he’ll hae gotten them by this time.  I maun speak wi’ himself’, unless, as they said, he’s no a’ there.”

“Haud your tongue, ye fule!” cried Malcolm, stopping him with a fierce whisper.  “Yon’s my lord!”

The old shepherd started back, for at this moment a sudden blaze-up of the fire showed him, sitting in the corner, the diminutive figure, attired carefully after the then fashion of gentlemen’s dress, every thing rich and complete, even to the black silk stockings and shoes on the small, useless feet, and the white ruffles half hiding the twisted wrists and deformed hands.

“Yes, I am the Earl of Cairnforth.  What did you want to say to me?”

He was so bewildered, the rough shepherd, who had spent all his life on the hill-sides, and never seen or imagined so sad a sight as this, that at first he could not find a word.  Then he said, hanging back and speaking confusedly and humbly, “I ask your pardon, my lord—­I dina ken—­I’ll no trouble ye the day.”

“But you do not trouble me at all.  Mr. Menteith is not here yet, and I know nothing about business; still, if you wished to speak to me, do so; I am Lord Cairnforth.”